Author Archives: Jay Butchko
Who’s Afraid of Rent Control?
Necessities are becoming prohibitively expensive, and consumers are running out of options. You have been clipping coupons like it’s your job, but your favorite grocery items with a coupon today cost more than they did without a coupon two years ago. The last time you made a leisurely purchase was years ago. You have… Read More »
Is Chapter 7 Bankruptcy the Financial Reset You Need?
When the pandemic hit, what seems like a lifetime ago, you thought that the financial stress would be temporary. You canceled your subscriptions and devoted your free time to gig work in an effort to supplement your income until better times returned. Even though COVID infections and people’s efforts to avoid them no longer… Read More »
How Helpful Can Chatbots Be With Personal Finance Advice?
Every time you open a news feed, there are all kinds of alarmist headlines about how artificial intelligence is about to make all our jobs obsolete. The ways that generative artificial intelligence can make us financially and emotionally poorer are obvious and abundant, but can they enrich our lives? For everyone who has warned… Read More »
Credit Card Debt Is for Gainfully Employed People, Too
Your attitude about your financial situation probably depends in part on what you are comparing it to. If you spend your time watching aspirational content where YouTubers seem to have endless resources to spend on leisure travel or on kitchen equipment and cooking ingredients, you will always feel like you are broke, even if… Read More »
Who’s Afraid of Personal Loans?
If you have been living paycheck to paycheck for more than a few months, you probably frequently get notices in the mail inviting you to apply for unsecured personal loans. You probably ignore them, if only because the format is so annoying. They look like reimbursement checks, like you would get if the phone… Read More »
Early Repayment of Personal Loans
If you are worried about whether it is a good idea or a bad idea to pay off your personal loan early, count your blessings. Most people only wish they could be in your situation. If your dilemma is whether to repay your personal loan before it matures, it means that you reasonably believe… Read More »
Moving On From a Disastrous Business Venture
Most business projects never become profitable. If anything, the statistic that most small businesses are no longer in operation by their fifth anniversary presents an unrealistically rosy picture. Many business ventures do not even make it to their first day of opening for business. If your most recent entrepreneurship project was over before it… Read More »
Mortgage Origination Fees
If you are worrying about mortgage origination fees, the finish line is within sight, and you have almost achieved the dream of homeownership. You have already placed a down payment, and you have already persuaded the lender that your income is high enough to keep up with the monthly payments. Now it is just… Read More »
Side Gigs Aren’t Just for Ambitious People Anymore
A few years ago, throwing shade on hustle culture was all the rage. The Internet was abuzz with talk of self-care, quit lit, and the Great Resignation. These days, the idea of choosing not to work and still having enough money for essentials is laughable. Somewhere tonight, a mother is pushing a stroller down… Read More »
Would You Open a Bank Account With a Friend?
In an age of unrelenting financial woes, when content creators are out of ideas, kids are entertained by AI-generated brain rot memes, and adults keep clicking on a feedback loop of content about how bots are taking all our jobs, a wondrous thing has happened. After decades, perhaps centuries, of increasing alienation, people are… Read More »